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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23570449">One Hundred First Meetings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlitroses/pseuds/sunlitroses'>sunlitroses</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Death by fluff, F/F, Fluff, Lesbian disasters, Meet-Cute, Prompt Fic, So Many Different Universes, There Are A Million Universes, They Are Disasters in Every One of Them, how is that not a tag already</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:15:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23570449</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlitroses/pseuds/sunlitroses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the theory of parallel universes, there is the potential for millions of universes to exist side by side, each slightly or wildly different from the next. Butterflies flap their wings, elections change on a handful of votes, natural disasters happen earlier or later or never, and suddenly this universe is just slightly out of tune with the next.</p><p>But every universe has a constant. And Yasmin Khan was always meant to meet The Doctor.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Flier</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have dived head first into the wonderful world of Thasmin AUs and have desperately wanted to try my hand at one. Hindered by the fact that I didn't have a single good idea. Or bad idea, I wasn't picky. Which is when I stumbled across @iobeyfandoms glorious list of AU prompts: https://iobeyfandoms.tumblr.com/post/123486434219/aus </p><p>It is a brilliant list and I am going to do so many of them, and they are going to be so very, very fluffy.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: I’m really passionate about this cause and I will give you this flier if I have to shove it down your throat.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>Yaz’s first day of university, when she was a wide-eyed newbie, she’d stopped a mugging by knocking out the guy’s teeth. She was determined that her second year would start off on a better note. Failing that, all she asked was one that at least wouldn’t require stitches. Yet here she was in her wise and weary second year of university, and she almost started the term off by walking straight into a girl attempting to punch her in the face.</p><p>“Ah, shit,” Yaz ducked under the hand and shoved out an elbow, satisfied at the resulting ‘oof’ sound.</p><p>“The hell,” her attacker wheezed. “Blimey, most people just say no thanks and walk on. Not,” the voice sounded stronger, like they were getting their wind back, “that I would have taken no for an answer.”</p><p>What?</p><p>“What?” Yaz echoed her thought aloud, lowering her hands from their defensive position and looking at her assailant. Who didn’t look altogether threatening, bent over with her hands on her knees, whooping in breaths.</p><p>“I said,” the girl stood up, aggressively tucking short blond hair back behind her ears where it politely waited .03 seconds before slithering back around to her chin, “that most people just say no thanks.” She shoved her hand at Yaz again, who flinched before realizing that the fist contained a piece of paper. Also that it was less of a fist and more just – a hand. With a piece of paper.</p><p>“What?” Yaz repeated. She was really not recovering well from the Welcome Back bash that Ryan had dragged her to last night. At least half her brain was still sleeping off the hangover and the other half of her brain really wanted to join it. She blamed that fact for her reaching out to take the paper. Rule #1: Never, ever take a flier from someone on the sidewalk. They viewed it as a sign of weakness and would move in for the kill.</p><p>Case in point.</p><p>“See,” the girl pushed her hair back again with both hands and pointed at the flier, “you seem like you’re smart. I bet you’d be a great help, and we need more people otherwise it’s not really fair to the kids, innit? What are you in, biology? Could really use a biologist, us.”</p><p>“Wh,” Yaz stopped herself halfway through saying what again. She had reached her allotted limit of that word for the day. Time to find a new one. Stumped, she squinted at the flier. There was a picture of a small child on it, smiling and holding up a beaker. Across the top in large, painfully bright lettering, was the sentence, ‘Helping the next generation of scientists!’ Both picture and text were surrounded by obscene amounts of neon clip art. Yaz felt her eyes start to bleed. “Wow. This is.” Her mind stumbled to a halt again.</p><p>“Like it? Made it myself. Graham,” the girl made a flinging motion that Yaz didn’t attempt to follow, “he’s got one with all the details on it and stuff, but I figure this catches the eye and makes you want to know more. That’s where I come in!” She pointed at herself proudly and shot Yaz a thumbs up for some inexplicable reason.</p><p>“It certainly is,” Yaz mumbled a beat too late. “Um, eye catching. Graham?” Sure, that sounded like a reasonable question, brain.</p><p>“Faculty advisor. Also the one who coordinates with the school. And drives us over.” The girl was digging around in her pockets between sentences. “Ah hah!” A pen was shoved in front of Yaz’s face. “Knew I had one somewhere. Now, what’s your name? What are you studying? I’m Jane, by the way, Jane Smith. Astrophysics.”</p><p>“Ah, Yaz,” Yaz answered automatically. “I mean, Yasmin Khan. I’m in, wait, why?”</p><p>“That’s a funny field,” Jane muttered as she scrawled Yaz’s name onto a piece of paper. “Yasmin Khan, we need to know your field so we know what you can teach the kids.”</p><p>“Teach? I’m teaching who? Why?” Yaz was so tired.</p><p>“The kids,” Jane pointed towards the forgotten paper in Yaz’s hand. “After school program to get ‘em interested in the sciences. Something fun that’s not on a test, y’know? Although Graham keeps squashing all my really cool ideas.”</p><p>“I’m not really... science-y,” that was probably a word. “I’m pre-law.”</p><p>“A lawyer?” Jane’s face scrunched. It was cute, Yaz thought, before the awake half of her brain caught up with that thought and went <em>oh no</em>. “Haven’t you had to do any science? Or math? Wait, no, this is perfect,” Jane’s face lit up. Before Yaz could catch up with why, Jane’s hand slipped into hers and tugged until they were moving down the sidewalk at high speed. Didn’t she do anything slowly?</p><p>“Graham, Graham, I’ve got the answer,” Yaz stumbled into Jane’s back as she came to an abrupt halt. Her chin clipped the slightly taller shoulder and she inhaled something floral before jumping backwards. She smelled nice. Her brain thought that was concerning for some reason.</p><p>“Answer to what?” Yaz focused past Jane’s shoulder to an older man looking at her with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>“You keep saying I can’t bring the fun equipment in case a kiddo gets hurt, which they wouldn’t, but anyway, Yasmin Khan here can keep us out of trouble, she knows the law. I’m sure there’s one about this somewhere, right?” Jane’s head swiveled hopefully around and Yaz was caught in a pleading hazel gaze.</p><p>“Um, I’m still learning,” she protested feebly. “But maybe?” she found herself adding as the blond pouted.</p><p>“I don’t care what you find, no one’s surfing the banisters, launching rockets, setting anything on fire, and definitely,” he ticked off on his fingers, continuing over Jane’s in-drawn breath, “no liquid nitrogen.”</p><p>Jane’s breath deflated again. “But, the liquid nitrogen tank is the best thing in the physics building,” she waved violently. “And we could make ice cream! Everyone loves ice cream, Graham!”</p><p>“Um, maybe if they just ate the ice cream,” Yaz offered, unprepared for the two heads that swiveled around to stare at her. “Y’know, you all make it, like a demo? Then they get to eat it.” Yaz just barely stopped herself from making miming motions of eating something from a bowl.</p><p>Abruptly Jane grabbed her shoulders and shoved her in front of Graham. Yaz squeaked and tried not to fall over. “See, lawyer skills, that’s what we need. Liquid nitrogen ice cream demo, yeah? We could do a whole thing about temperatures, then how to make ice cream, and end with explody ice cream making. C’mon Graham, they’d love it.”</p><p>Graham huffed, clearly knowing when someone had picked their hill to die on. “I’ll think about it,” he conceded.</p><p>“Woohoo!” Yaz found herself being danced around by an energetic blond tornado. “This is going to be fantastic, just you wait. You’ll come won’t you, Yasmin Khan? You can figure out how to do my other experiments and eat ice cream.”</p><p>“No banisters,” Graham inserted loudly.</p><p>Jane waved a hand – of course, of course – but kept her eyes firmly fixed on Yaz.</p><p>“It’s Yaz,” she said, which didn’t make any sense, her brain kindly pointed out. “My friend’s call me Yaz, I mean.”</p><p>“Brilliant,” Jane grinned. “Then I’m calling you Yaz, cause we’re friends now, right?”</p><p>“Well, I do like ice cream,” she smiled as Jane laughed.</p><p>“Wait,” she frowned again, “what do you mean it explodes?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Boyfriend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: My roommate’s boyfriend is staying over, so can I please sleep on your floor.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>She liked Amy. Yaz reminded herself of this fact repeatedly while attempting to suffocate her own face with a stack of pillows. Amy was strictly fair when it came to cleaning up the kitchen and never shirked her half. Amy had once walked five streets over to get Yaz a box of tampons and an entire container of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the dead of night in the pouring rain when Yaz had found herself sadly out of both at a really unfortunate time. Amy never failed to clean her hair out of the tub drain, which was really a selling point, because that was just gross. Amy…</p><p>Amy was currently having very loud sex with her boyfriend in the next room over and three pillows was not going to be enough. Yaz was going to kill her otherwise very lovely roommate. She was almost certain that she would feel sorry about that once she had gotten some sleep. But she wouldn’t be able to get any sleep until she’d killed Amy. It was a conundrum.</p><p>Of course, to kill Amy she’d have to enter That Room.</p><p>Yaz needed a Plan B.</p><p>Hadn’t she been thinking something about ice cream?</p><p>Groaning, Yaz let the pillows topple off to one side and slithered reluctantly out of bed. Groping in the dark, she pulled on the first clothes that came to hand. It was – she squinted at the clock – midnight. No one was allowed to judge what someone wore at midnight.</p><p>Stumbling slightly, she wove her way to the kitchen, flat illuminated only by the streetlight glow from the front room. Pulling open the freezer door, she was faced with the second worst experience she’d suffered though all night. One lone carton of pistachio ice cream hunkered down in the middle of the freezer. She glared at it. Why did they have pistachio ice cream? Who even liked pistachio ice cream? Why would anyone go to the store, look through the ice cream section, and decide ‘Gee, I want a treat, but not one that I’m actually going to enjoy, best get this off brand, more than slightly dented carton of the worst ice cream choice in existence, so I can have flavorless spoonfuls of milk and depression.’</p><p>Yaz shut the freezer door again.</p><p>Were any stores open at midnight? Why yes, her mind supplied, the one five streets over that definitely has mint chocolate chip ice cream. And tampons, but that wasn’t really going to help her tonight.</p><p>She sighed and went to find shoes. With a sense of thwarted vengeance, she took Amy’s high-tops.</p><p>Plan C lasted all the way to the ice cream aisle five streets over, which frankly was a record for Yaz’s luck that night, but still distressing.</p><p>“Where has all the ice cream gone?” she whispered softly to herself. It was a small shop, logic tried to introduce itself into the conversation. Sometimes small shops ran out of everything, like when apparently everyone decided they needed ice cream sometime before midnight on a Thursday evening. “But where has the ice cream gone?” Yaz repeated, and logic exited into the night once again.</p><p>“I think there’s a carton down there at the bottom?” a voice interjected behind her. Yaz started and whipped around to see a figure bent over and pointing towards something at the back of the case. She must have made a sound because the woman straightened up and gave her a grin, hazel eyes inviting her to share in the joke. “You’d been standing there for a while, thought you might have missed that one.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Yaz shook her head and opened the door, crouching down to grab blindly at the buried carton. Successful she pulled it out and turned back towards the blonde who was… bouncing slightly?</p><p>“Brilliant! You looked like you needed ice cream to go on living, so now you can. Oh,” the bouncing stopped abruptly, and the blonde’s face morphed into an expression of tragedy. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“What?” Yaz looked behind her, expecting to see an axe murderer or something lurking in the shadows.</p><p>“The ice cream,” the blonde sounded so sorry, looking up at Yaz through her fringe. “It’s pistachio. Unless you like pistachio?” she hurriedly added. “I mean some people do. Well, they must, otherwise why would they make it. Maybe some sort of social experiment?” She hummed briefly, fading off into a rather fake throat clearing under Yaz’s stare. “Um, so pistachio?”</p><p>“I hate pistachio,” Yaz stated. “I’m on board with sick social experiment.”</p><p>“Oh good,” those hazel eyes twinkled again, “I thought you seemed like a nice, sane person. Glad I wasn’t wrong.”</p><p>Yaz snorted and then just kept laughing, knocking her wrist against the shelves as she shoved the carton back into the freezer. “Sorry,” she wheezed, as the blonde began to look a little alarmed. “Only I came all this way because the only thing in our freezer was pistachio and my roommate’s having sex with her boyfriend so I can’t sleep and ice cream may be the only thing standing between me and murdering her. Well, that, and I don’t want to see Rory naked. Or them having sex. Why am I telling you all of this?” She mumbled to a halt and stuffed her face into her hands as her cheeks began to burn.</p><p>“This is a tragedy,” was not what she expected to hear in solemn tones. “A tragedy that definitely calls for ice cream. And, wait, Rory?”</p><p>Yaz raised her face from her hands at the curious note entering her voice. “Yeah, Rory. That’s my roommate’s boyfriend.”</p><p>“Is your roommate Amy Pond? We’re old friends, did a bit of travel together on gap year,” one hand flailed a bit as though to encompass several continents off to the right somewhere. “Her boyfriend’s a Rory and it’s not that common a name. I don’t think.”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s my roommate. Oh, hang on,” Yaz squinted at the figure across from her, “I’ve seen you in pictures, haven’t I? Someone who begins with a ‘J,’ Jodie? Jamie?”</p><p>“Jane,” the woman corrected, and grinned widely. “And you’re Jasmine? I think? She’s told me a bit about you. Thought I’d get to know you more once I unpacked.”</p><p>“Yasmin, Yaz to my friends,” Yaz said absently. “That’s right, Amy said a few weeks ago one of her old friends was moving in upstairs. We were going to have you over for dinner once you got here. But she didn’t say you were here already!”</p><p>“Yeah, snuck in today,” Jane shrugged sheepishly. “Bit early. Movers got everything in this afternoon, then I passed right out. Jet lag. Woke up and realized I didn’t have anything for dinner and all the shops were closed. Went for a kabob, then realized I didn’t want to unpack anything, so,” she shrugged again, “the magic of Google.” Yaz’s gaze dropped to her basket, where she could pick out a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap on the top of the small stack.  “Um,” Jane sounded uncertain for the first time in the conversation, and Yaz dragged her attention back to her face. “This might be weird, cause I know I tend to be weird, and I don’t have the beds set up. I was just planning to kip on the floor tonight. But I did find the boxes of blankets, and I have a ton, and it might be better than not sleeping with no ice cream.”</p><p>Yaz wasn’t sure how long Jane would have kept stumbling her way to a conclusion, but she’d finally picked up the point of the long stream of words. “Please,” she uttered, a little more passionately than she intended. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Please, let me sleep on your floor. I will be in your debt forever. And buy you ice cream. Later. Because the only ice cream here is sad, depressing ice cream.”</p><p>Jane laughed, the weight that had bowed her shoulders down as she awkwarded her way through the invitation dropping off immediately. “I am holding you to that, Yaz. I can call you Yaz, right?” she checked.</p><p>“I think sleeping on your floor probably makes us friends, yeah,” Yaz said, more cheerful than she’d been all night.</p><p>“Brilliant,” Jane said, plowing for the till with single-minded intent. “One day here and I’ve already got a friend. I’m acing this move.”</p><p>Yaz couldn’t stop the laugh that prompted and didn’t really try very hard. “Oh hey,” she realized, joining Jane in the short queue of other midnight shoppers. “You’re in the apartment right above us, aren’t you?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jane nodded. “Why?”</p><p>“Do you think we can figure out which room is above Amy’s and jump up and down really loudly? I’m almost positive they’ll be asleep by the time we get in.” Yaz grinned wickedly, then hoped she hadn’t come off as mean or evil or something, looking over to see how Jane had taken her comment.</p><p>“Yaz,” Jane placed one hand over her heart. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Library</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: We’re studying in the library and there are two people very obviously fucking in the stacks and we keep sharing embarrassed glances.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>Day Four on the job and so far, so good. The number of people who came to the front desk for completely non-library related questions had been surprising and the places that students found to take naps in alarming, but overall Yaz was fairly certain that this was going to be a decent job. She’d have to thank Ryan for giving her the heads up. He’d taken a job working with the campus IT department last year and had blown up her phone two weeks ago when he’d heard about the position while fixing a monitor in the library computer lab.</p><p>Briskly, she trotted up the last set of stairs and pushed open one of the double doors into the fourth floor. Fifteen minutes until the library closed and one of her last tasks was making sure that all the sleeping, caffeine-buzzed, or mid-term despairing students started to clear out of the building. It made her feel like an eighteenth century town crier, but at least saved her from whatever weirdness was going on at the circulation desk.</p><p>“Fifteen minutes until close,” she told the group of students lounging on the sofas in front of the staircase doors. They grumbled or nodded and started to stuff books and pens into backpacks. Yas pretended not to see the cups of coffee. There was some vague pretense about no liquids or foods in the stacks, but it wasn’t rigorously enforced, especially as the library had its own coffee shop in the basement.</p><p>She set off down the main aisle, checking each row for anyone perusing the shelves. Or sleeping on the shelves, the veteran who had showed her around the first night had cautioned her that there was a weird dude who always wore purple who was known for that – he was also the one who had tried to stage a takeover of the coffee shop after going four days without sleep at the end of last year. Yaz was not looking forward to meeting him. Although she wouldn’t mind meeting the pre-med student who had lured him out from behind his takeaway cup fortifications with an energy drink and then sat on him until he passed out. While drinking said energy drink herself.</p><p>“Fifteen minutes until close,” she spoke a little louder so that the student feverishly writing would hear her. She repeated herself when the redhead didn’t so much as look up.</p><p>“Yes, I heard you, sunshine,” the girl snapped. “Sorry,” she looked up at Yaz with bloodshot eyes. “I’ve just got to get this down. Fifteen minutes, gottit.” Yaz nodded and moved on, unnerved that she had kept writing while looking away from the page. The five minute call with that one was going to be fun.</p><p>She was nearing the end of the aisle when she saw the blonde figure pacing back and forth near the last row of stacks.</p><p>“Fifteen minutes,” she started, and the figure whirled around, arms outstretched, “until close,” Yaz finished weakly.</p><p>“Oh no,” the girl said, looking at Yaz with wide hazel eyes. “I really need that book.”</p><p>“Well, you still have fifteen minutes,” Yaz couldn’t help but try to banish that stressed look, even if she was supposed to be encouraging everyone to leave. “Are you having trouble finding it?”</p><p>“No,” the blonde shook her head. “Well, probably not. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s there, the library catalog said it was in, I just can’t exactly check. So that is a problem, which I guess means yes? But not because I don’t know where it is. Or at least where it’s supposed to be. Is this like Schrodinger’s book? It could or could not be on the shelf, and is currently in a state where both exist because I can’t go and observe it?”</p><p>Yaz pondered exactly how to respond to this statement and decided to go with, “What?”</p><p>“Um, it’s,” the girl motioned over her shoulder at the last row of the stacks. She motioned again more frantically with both hands when she apparently ran out of words.</p><p>Without their conversation this corner of the library was quiet, which meant that there was nothing to prevent Yaz from noticing a thumping sound coming from the row, now that she was paying attention. Was the case… moving? Oh no, what could cause that, there had been nothing in the training manual about cases that moved. Well, Yaz could improvise.</p><p>Squaring her shoulders, Yaz stepped around the blond and marched to the end of the row, reaching it just as the case gave a violent shudder and a muffled moan emerged from the depths. Yaz stopped abruptly. Was that?</p><p>She looked back at the girl, who had her hands pressed firmly over her mouth, cheeks bright red and eyes wide. Yaz couldn’t blame her, she had a feeling her own eyes were popping out of her head. She shoved a thumb towards the row and mouthed ‘Is that?’</p><p>The blonde didn’t move her hands, but just nodded her head up and down emphatically, somehow turning a brighter shade of red.</p><p>Right, Yaz could deal with this. Bill had said something about people having sex in the stacks during her tour, but Yaz had sort of brushed that off. Who had sex in a <em>library</em>? Call her old fashioned, but Yaz preferred her intimate encounters to take place somewhere with a bed. Or a couch. Or at least a modicum of privacy. Not that she was having many ‘encounters’ lately. Was it because she couldn’t understand the appeal of libraries?</p><p>Yaz shook her head. Now was not the time to get maudlin about her love life. Now was the time to interrupt someone else’s love life. Literally. She looked back at the girl who had dropped her hands, but was still beet red. At least she wasn’t going through this alone. She pointed towards the row again and mouthed ‘I’ve got this,’ finding herself unexpectedly grinning at the enthusiastic double thumbs up she got in reply.</p><p>Parking herself at the end of the row and resolutely not looking down it at all, Yaz called in her loudest voice, “Fifteen minutes until close.”</p><p>She heard a squeak and frantic rustling. Moving one row further away, she repeated the announcement. It took one more row, but suddenly two figures rushed out of the last aisle and booked it for the staircase. Or at least started to book it.</p><p>“Clara?” the blonde said, then smacked her hands back over her mouth.</p><p>One of the figures, a petite brunette, stopped and turned back at the name. After a beat, she answered, “Jane?”</p><p>The blonde – Jane, Yaz assumed – took one hand from her face and wiggled her fingers in hello.</p><p>“Um, hey,” Clara looked almost abashed for a moment before she straightened up and waved towards the other figure, who had made it to the stairwell door before figuring out that he had lost someone, “library’s closing up, we’re just going to head back to the flat. Guess we’ll see you there?” It was phrased like a question, but her voice did not sound like a question. Her voice sounded like it she saw Jane at the flat, other Words would follow.</p><p>“Okay,” Jane whispered behind her hand, then jumped at the glare she received in return. “I mean, no. I’m not going back to our flat. I’m going,” she stalled, “somewhere else? Somewhere with coffee. With someone, I mean. Someone and coffee. Somewhere. Somewhere with someone and coffee.”</p><p>“Okay, don’t hurt yourself,” Clara laughed. “I’ll see you later.” She turned back towards the door, then whirled around again, “Much later, right?”</p><p>“Yes,” Jane nodded, hair bouncing in front of her face, “much later after the coffee with someone. Somewhere.”</p><p>“Good,” Clara disappeared into the stairwell.</p><p>Jane stared after her for a moment, hand still pressed over her mouth. Yaz cleared her throat, smiling apologetically when the other girl jumped.</p><p>“Sorry. It’s just, um, probably ten minutes until close now,” Yaz shrugged slightly. “But I think you can get your book?”</p><p>“Oh right,” she hesitated at the end of the row, then plunged down the aisle. Better her than me, Yaz found herself thinking. Who knew where they had been – leaning.</p><p>“Success,” Jane appeared back out of the Aisle Yaz Was Never Getting A Book Out Of No Matter What, book held high above her head. “No longer Schrodinger’s book. It does exist and now I can finish proving Kos completely and utterly wrong about everything ever. Well,” she amended as Yaz blinked at her, “at least wrong about the double-slit experiment. But he is totally wrong about everything ever.”</p><p>“Well, good,” Yaz smiled at the enthusiasm, even if she had no idea what was going on. “A happy ending.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jane smiled at the book in her hands for a moment, but then the smile slid off of her face.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Yaz was probably supposed to be going around yelling at people again about leaving, but she was pretty sure that the only person she was going to have to pry off the floor tonight was that redhead and she would bet that girl wasn’t going until the last minute. Besides, there was a pretty girl in distress standing in front of her and Yaz was supposed to be supporting the patrons of the library. Not to mention they’d bonded over the past five minutes that Yaz was going to be suppressing for the rest of time.</p><p>“I don’t really have someplace with someone for coffee,” Jane admitted sadly. “I was lying.”</p><p>Yaz muffled a snort and also her first reply, which was along the lines of, ‘No kidding? You’re only the worst liar I’ve ever met, who would have guessed.’</p><p>“So where are you going to go?” she asked instead.</p><p>Jane shrugged, looking up from the book in her hands. “Is the Student Union still open?”</p><p>“I think it’s open til one,” Yaz told her. “That should give Clara enough time, I’d think.”</p><p>“Right,” Jane flamed red again. It was ridiculously adorable. “I guess I’ll head there then. I haven’t really been before, do they have coffee?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Yaz turned and headed back down the main aisle, Jane drifting up to walk beside her. “I think everyone in this place runs on coffee. Or tea. They have all the caffeine there, don’t worry.”</p><p>“Well then, it wasn’t really a lie,” Jane seemed buoyed by that statement, her step turning into a bounce. “I’m having coffee somewhere. And there will probably be someone else there. Someones, even.”</p><p>Yaz hesitated for a moment. She wasn’t one to put herself out there, but between their shared traumatic experience and her brief pondering of her sad love life in comparison to Clara’s, she was willing to take a chance for once. “Um, if you wanted to make sure of that, I mean, I’m done at about ten minutes after the library closes. If you wanted to have someone to get coffee with at the somewhere. The Student Union.” Apparently it was Yaz’s turn to blush.</p><p>“Yes,” Jane blurted out before Yaz could start regretting every decision she had ever made in her entire life. “Absolutely. Coffee with,” she squinted at Yaz’s nametag, “Yaz, brilliant.” She grinned, hazel eyes bright.</p><p>“Yeah,” Yaz echoed, smile tugging her own mouth wide, “brilliant.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Car</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: You peed on my car. You were drunk. I was in the car. There will be hell to pay.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>“Did you just?” Yaz found herself at a loss for words, which was unusual. “Did you just,” she tried again, “<em>piss</em> on my car?”</p><p>The potential piss perpetrator in question just stared at her, mouth open, eyes wide, and hands outstretched, one holding a cup. She looked as though she were in complete shock, which Yaz thought rather unfair. Yes, Yaz had tumbled out of the back seat of her car and leapt in front of the woman in one rather impressive move, if she did say so herself. However, she was not the one who had just pissed on someone else’s car. Only one person had the right to be shocked here, and that was Yaz. She was not sharing the privilege.</p><p>“Did you,” Yaz repeated, enunciating every word, “just.”</p><p>“No!” the woman interrupted, started to shake both hands frantically in front of herself, realized one of them had a cup in it, and shook just the one hand. “No, no, no. That would be bad. And weird. I am weird, my friend tells me so all the time. Just like that, too, ‘Jane, why are you so weird?’ Well, probably friend? Person who keeps threatening to toss me out the door if I ever hit on her, but also got me drunk tonight because my experiment worked. It also set Missy’s project on fire,” the blonde drifted both in thought and in body to lean against the side of Yaz’s car. “Missy’s failed project.” She grinned widely at Yaz, as though Missy’s failure should also be amusing to her. “I think she only threatens me cause she knows she’s isn’t my type,” she paused, nose scrunching in serious thought, “also because she’s ginger, maybe? Oh no, don’t tell Donna I said that,” her eyes were wide again as she stared at Yaz. “She’s got this thing about ginger stares, stereos, types of stereos,” she huffed and draped herself further over the car, “’bout people saying bad stuff about gingers. I always wanted to be ginger.” This phrase was confided to Yaz’s car in sad tones. “Don’t know if I could pull it off, though. What do you think?” He gaze swung between Yaz and her car.</p><p>“I think,” Yaz decided to ignore eighty percent of the previous monologue, “that I was lying in my backseat, waiting for my mate, when I heard someone on the pavement go, ‘Blimey, I really need to go.’ Then what I think is that I heard someone pissing on my car! You’re the only person here, so do you know what else I think?”</p><p>“But I didn’t!” if those eyes got any bigger, they were going to pop right out of her head, Yaz thought irrelevantly. “I dumped out my cup, cause I knew I needed to go home, and if I didn’t I’d keep drinking and then that would make the problem so much worse. Wait, I mean, that is what you thought, right? That I had, y’know,” she blushed and mumbled at the ground, “pissed on your car? Or was it something else,” she perked up again, eyes catching Yaz’s, “cause sometimes that happens to me. I mean to arrive at a QED, but suddenly I’m thinking about custard creams. Were you thinking of custard creams next?”</p><p>“No,” Yaz closed her eyes. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t piss on my car, you just threw, what,” she opened her eyes to squint at the cup in the blonde’s hand, “beer on it?”</p><p>“Yes,” she nodded vigourously, “Wait, no. Not on it. Near it. In the thing,” she waved her hand to the side. “Y’know, the thing off the pavement for water.”</p><p>“In the gutter,” Yaz translated. “Well, mate, think your aim was off a bit, as it definitely hit my car.” Her mother’s car actually, and wouldn’t she be thrilled. Yaz’s other ride was her police car, so she supposed of the two, this one was probably better to be beer-splashed. Possibly. Yaz mentally weighed explaining it to her mother versus her sergeant, then just decided to wash the damn thing and not explain it to either.</p><p>“Oops?” the woman offered sheepishly. “Sorry,” and there was that nose scrunch again. Yaz really shouldn’t find it this adorable. On the other hand, the woman hadn’t meant to douse her car in beer – and definitely hadn’t pissed on it, which made beer look loads better in comparison. “Didn’t mean to do that. Here,” she said, and then caught Yaz completely unawares by starting to take her shirt off.</p><p>“Whoa. No. Let’s not,” Yaz reached out to do something. She wasn’t sure what, but definitely stopping the drunk, pretty woman – Jane – drunk, pretty Jane from taking her clothes off. Not the time, she scolded herself. Now is not the time to think about the fact that she’s pretty. “Let’s just stay dressed, okay?”</p><p>“I’ve got a shirt underneath,” she huffed. “Least I think I do,” she looked down to check. “Yep, always layer, never know what’s going to happen, am I right?”</p><p>“It’s cold,” Yaz tried, “and you should probably keep all those layers on. What were you going to do with your shirt, anyway?” she couldn’t help but ask.</p><p>“Wipe your car off,” Jane shrugged. “Least I could do since I mucked it up.”</p><p>“Well, I appreciate the thought, but you don’t have to sacrifice your shirt for that. I’ve got some rags in the boot that I can clean it off with, now I know it’s just beer.” Yaz paused, not certain what to do next. She couldn’t just leave her here on the streets.</p><p>“Oi, blondie,” a loud voice echoed around them.</p><p>Yaz turned to see a redhead marching down the street towards them.</p><p>“What are you doing down here? And who is this?” she pointed a thumb at Yaz as she closed in, putting a hand around Jane’s bicep and prying her up from her lean over Yaz’s car.</p><p>“You must be Donna,” Yaz supplied, putting Jane’s earlier ramble together with this appearance. At Donna’s wary look, she continued, “The friend who took her out for drinks because she set someone’s project on fire? Sorry,” she shrugged at Donna’s scoff, “might have missed some of the details. This one was just through throwing beer at my car and I was about to try and figure out where she was supposed to be, but I guess you have that well in hand?”</p><p>“Yeah, I’ve got her. Why were you throwing beer at,” she waved a hand imperiously at Yaz.</p><p>“Yaz,” Yaz supplied.</p><p>“Right. Why were you throwing beer at Yaz’s car? Did it look at you funny, you weirdo?” At odds with her words, Donna wrapped a careful arm around Jane’s waist and propped her up against the ginger.</p><p>“Didn’t mean to hit her car,” she grumbled, putting her own arm around Donna’s shoulder. “And I offered to clean it up.”</p><p>“No, please,” Yaz interjected hurriedly. “It’s cold remember, you should keep your shirt on.”</p><p>“What even,” Donna hissed at Jane, before looking back to Yaz. “I’m sorry, she’s not normally like this. Well, she’s always weird, but not normally weird this way.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Yaz found herself surprisingly telling the truth with that one. “My mate is taking his sweet time getting out to his ride home, so it made the wait,” she stalled on a word, “interesting.”</p><p>“Sure,” Donna snorted, then covered her face with her hand, looking aghast. Looks like Jane wasn’t the only one who’d had a few. “Sorry about it anyway, and I’ll just take her to be interesting somewhere else now.”</p><p>“Aw,” Jane pouted, nose crinkling as her mouth turned down at the corners.</p><p>“Actually,” Donna said, staring at Jane in what looked like surprise, “d’you mind if I gave you her number?” She looked over as Yaz felt her face doing something against her will. “I know, it’s weird, but she’s gonna want to apologize in the morning if she remembers this and it’ll save me listening to her moan about being rude for weeks. Not that she has a problem being rude when it’s her own idea,” Donna glared at the blonde cuddling into her neck. “Leaving experiments in the fridge, interrupting my dates on a whim, eating all the biscuits in the house in one day, oh that’s all fine, but accidentally forget to invite someone on a night out and suddenly its hair shirts all around.”</p><p>Yaz smirked, recognizing someone on a familiar tirade. She was pretty sure she had a similar one saved up about Sonya.</p><p>“Yeah, sure,” she put in before Donna could really build up steam, pulling her phone from her back pocket. “What’s her number? I’ll shoot her a text so she’ll have mine in the morning.”</p><p>“Oi, that’s your cue,” Donna shook Jane as she mumbled about meanies. After a minute of prompting, she obediently gave Yaz a string of digits.</p><p>“Nifty things, mobiles,” she continued, seemingly happy to keep talking now that she had a subject. “Used to have to write down a number on your hand, hope it didn’t sweat off, and not forget about it when having a wash until you could write it down. Now, pull out your phone, boom, problem solved. Less you lose your phone,” she began frantically patting her pockets, elbowing Donna in the side.</p><p>“Quit squirming, you loon,” Donna banged into her with a hip. “You left it at home so you wouldn’t lose it. Left your wits there too, looks like. Sorry again,” she switched back to Yaz before Jane could muster up a retaliating remark. “Hope your mate doesn’t keep you much longer.”</p><p>“He’s on his way down now,” Yaz waved her phone, where the message had popped up as she input Jane’s number and sent her a text. “Be safe getting home.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Donna gave her a friendly smile and turned the two of them around to head back down the street.</p><p>“Only you, you nutter, could go around throwing beer all over the place and end up throwing it at a girl like that,” Donna clearly thought that she was either farther away or quieter than she really was, as Yaz could hear her telling Jane off as they walked away. “Bet she doesn’t have to diet, that one. And now you’ve got her number. You owe me big. I’m not doing the dishes for weeks, you hear?” There was a pause, during which Yaz tried to stifle her laughs. “And if that mate of hers is cute, I better hear about it first.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Had a bit of a struggle with this one, as writing someone peeing on a car was not territory I wanted to venture into - it's in the spirit of the prompt at least, right?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Party</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: My friend dragged me to this party and I just saw my ex, quick, make out with me.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: Brief mention of cheating in a previous relationship.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>About an hour and a half into the party, Yaz reluctantly admitted to herself that maybe Ryan was right. Not that she would ever tell him so, he’d be unbearably smug for the rest of time, but this party wasn’t so bad. Getting out of the house was pretty nice too, she mused, sipping her soda. Maybe she had spent too long moping about indoors, the break up was two months ago, she was entirely ready to get back to living.</p><p>At that thought she turned and saw the blonde social butterfly she’d been catching glimpses of all evening laugh at something a tall redhead whispered in her ear, throwing her head back and crinkling her nose. A rush of butterflies invaded her stomach at the sight and she took a larger sip of soda.</p><p>Mostly ready to go back to living, she amended. Not quite ready to follow that butterfly fleet to try and talk to a pretty girl who seemed to light up the room with her smile. Yaz had never been very good at chatting up, anyway. She was lucky to pull off smiling nicely and listening, so Izzy has always said.</p><p>She frowned down into her Sprite. Rule #3 for tonight had been no thinking about the ex. Well, Rules 1 through 5 had all been about Izzy, until she’d told Ryan that he was breaking his own rule by bringing her up so much. Rule #6 had been that she was a smart arse who had to talk to someone besides him at the party.</p><p>Yaz wasn’t certain if hanging on the fringes of various groups listening to the latest gossip counted, but it had been pretty enjoyable. Nice even, to just think about the latest single dropped, who was pregnant now, or how Missy had just been promoted after her boss mysteriously went missing last month.</p><p>Just in case it wasn’t good enough for Ryan, who was sure to interrogate her tomorrow, Yaz shuffled away from the outskirts of her current group and went to refill her drink. There was always some sort of small talk where food and drink was concerned, that’d be good enough.</p><p>“Have I seen you around before?” Yaz almost splashed soda over the table as a voice piped up beside her. “You don’t look familiar and Amy brought me, so I thought you might be someone new.”</p><p>“Yeah, I came with Ryan,” was all that Yaz got out before she turned to find the blonde bombshell she’d been eyeing all evening hovering at her side. This close she could see that her eyes were the warmest, friendliest shade of hazel that she’d ever seen.</p><p>“Ryan,” those eyes narrowed in thought. “Is he the one whose Gran works with Rory?”</p><p>“Um,” breathe, Yaz, she scolded herself. Breathe and answer the gorgeous girl standing in front of you actually attempting to make a conversation. “Probably? If Rory’s the one who does a health vlog?”</p><p>“Yep, that’s him.” Mystery solved, the woman’s eyes started sparkling again. “He’s a mate of mine. Him and his girlfriend, Amy, who brought me along in case everyone started talking about webcams and streaming rates. Oh, I’m Jane,” she waved one hand awkwardly, then shoved it into her hair. “Who are you, Ryan’s friend?” she asked after a beat.</p><p>“Oh,” Yaz kicked herself into gear. “Yasmin Khan. Yaz. Ryan brought me. Which I already said,” that was supposed to be inner monologue, she cried to herself. “I know a few others here, but not real well, still nice to have a night out, right?” Oh good, a question, she could stop talking.</p><p>“Yeah, and it’s a good mix here.” She even made terrible small talk endearing, Yaz thought helplessly. “Got to chat about black holes, Shelley, and football in one evening, that’s rare.” She grinned and Yaz felt her lips twitch upwards despite herself. “Amy’s right about the web talk, though, I now know way more about pixilation than I want.”</p><p>“Oh no, better you than me,” Yaz snorted. “Ryan won’t stop about it. That and bandwidth choking.”</p><p>“We didn’t make it there yet, must have got out just in time,” Jane clutched her heart melodramatically and Yaz found herself laughing. “What have you been talking about then, while avoiding the pixel battle?”</p><p>“Mostly just gossip,” Yaz remembered that she had actually been in the middle of poring her Sprite, and finished getting her soda as she spoke sideways to Jane. “I only know some of the people involved, though, so bit hit or miss. Been on nights lately, anyway, so not much to add.”</p><p>“Nights? Are you at the hospital, too? I haven’t run into you there, but I’ve been on days lately.” Jane asked.</p><p>“Nah, I’m a police constable,” Yaz hoped she wasn’t inviting some joke about arrests, but she was too proud of what she did to gloss over it. “Though from the way Ryan’s Gran talks about it, I’m not sure which of us have crazier nights.”</p><p>Jane laughed. “I’d argue, but honestly A&amp;E on nights is just bizarre sometimes.”</p><p>Yaz was about to ask for more details when her eyes caught on a familiar figure over Jane’s shoulder, just entering the front door. A familiar, unwelcome figure. Her eyes widened involuntarily.</p><p>“What?” Jane had clearly picked up on her attention diverting and made to turn around.</p><p>“No, don’t,” Yaz whispered, hands going out to stop Jane, but pulling back before she touched her. “It’s nothing.”</p><p>“If it were nothing, then I could turn around,” Jane pointed out shrewdly. “Party crasher?”</p><p>Caught, Yaz nodded, trying not to frown, “No one special, think she knows some people here.” She shrugged. See, she could play this off, be totally cool.</p><p>“All right,” Jane nodded tentatively, then tossed a hand out, nearly clipping someone attempting to approach the chip bowl. “You know what, not all right. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Who is it?”</p><p>Yaz sighed, so much for playing it cool. Jane seemed the type to dig in until she got an answer. “Really no one,” she relented, “just my ex. No big, just wasn’t expecting her here, that’s all.”</p><p>“Ooo,” Jane’s eyes went round, sympathy filling them. “Gotcha. Ex you need to dodge or just not keen on long conversations?”</p><p>“Rather not have any conversation,” Yaz muttered. “It’s whatever, it’s fine.” She shook out her arms, as though it would be that simple to get the weight of Izzy off her back.</p><p>“Well, those were two completely different sentences,” Jane poked Yaz in the shoulder. She jumped, not expecting the touch. Looking over at Jane, startled, she saw those hazel eyes wink at her mischievously. “Pick one, Yasmin Khan. The real one,” she added hurriedly, “which I think is probably not talking cause you lost your dimples the moment she came in.”</p><p>“I lost what?” Yaz latched on to the easiest part of that sentence to deal with.</p><p>“Dimples. That’s, y’know,” Jane waved a hand at her, then ran it through her own hair, mussing it haphazardly, “you stopped being all dimply. Smiling and stuff. Thought I’d put my foot in it for a moment.”</p><p>“Oh,” Yaz wasn’t sure what to do with someone calling out her dimples. In a good way, though? It seemed like Jane wasn’t happy they were gone, like she’d been trying to make her smile. “Oh,” she repeated in a different tone of voice, “no, it wasn’t, not you. I mean, you didn’t do anything. Nothing wrong, I mean. You’re funny, I mean nice, I mean,” end your sentence already, she told herself fiercely, I don’t care how, just end it, “I like how you talk.” Okay, maybe not like that. “It’s just Izzy took me by surprise.”</p><p>“Good,” Jane blurted out, emphatically. “That is,” she blinked, “I’m glad. That you like how I talk. You like how I talk? No one likes how I talk. Or maybe just how much I talk, that could be it. Wait, Izzy? Izzy Flint? Is that your ex?”</p><p>Yaz nodded, uncertain about the look on Jane’s face.</p><p>“Oh, you’re well shot of that, I think,” a horrified expression crossed her face briefly. “Just heard how that sounded. Maybe not good?”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Yaz surprised herself with a laugh. “I think it’s better, too. Just,” she shrugged one shoulder, “still in a weird place.”</p><p>“I get that. Didn’t mean to be so blunt about it, caught her cornering someone in a kitchen last party I was at with her and that was more of Izzy than I ever wanted to see. Managed to avoid her since then, though,” she reached out and tapped her cup against Yaz’s. “Been since February, guess it was too much to hope I’d make it a year.”</p><p>Yaz laughed again, Jane was good at that, making her laugh. “Yeah, I’d like to try,” she trailed off, “wait, February, this February?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jane nodded, nose half in her drink.</p><p>“Oh.” Yaz couldn’t manage anything more, stomach sinking through the floor. Around her, the voices and music seemed to grow distant and overwhelmingly louder at the same time. She didn’t feel quite like she was still in her body, that body standing transfixed by a stack of cups and soda bottles, with a blonde figure reaching out to grasp her arm.</p><p>“Yaz?” the figure asked, pulling her back into the moment with a swell of sound washing over her and subsiding around her again. “Did you hear me? I asked what was wrong?”</p><p>“Nothing.” At Jane’s impatient snort, she amended, “Last February. It’s just, we were still together then, is all.” She ran a hand over her face, rubbing at a cheekbone. “Guess that was never going to work out then, huh?” Humorlessly, she smiled, “Wonder how many here knew about that?” She gestured towards the crowd, part of her mind stalling on the thought that some of them must have seen something, known something, and never said anything to her. Had her friends known? Was she the only one who hadn’t been expecting Izzy to kick her to the curb?</p><p>“Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. That’s awful,” Jane’s hand was still on her arm, Yaz realized, the warmth emanating from it chasing away the last of her shakiness. “I doubt anyone here knows, if that helps? She doesn’t really hang with most of us. It’s why I haven’t seen her in months.”</p><p>Yaz looked back up at her, grateful. A second later, though, she realized that something far worse was about to happen. Izzy. Headed right their way.</p><p>Should she run? Stay where she was and politely nod? Get ready to respond to whatever Izzy said – something bound to have some mean, hidden second meaning, even though Izzy had been the one to break it off?</p><p>No, Yaz decided, she was done being the victim here. Done letting Izzy think that she had hurt Yaz, that she the ability to hurt Yaz. She needed to do something else, something to declare publically that Izzy didn’t matter to her at all anymore, something big, something bold, something like, something like...</p><p>“Kiss me,” she whispered urgently to Jane.</p><p>“What?” Jane’s cup froze halfway to her mouth.</p><p>Yaz reviewed that statement and agreed that she’d probably left out a few key points, but there wasn’t much time.</p><p>“Izzy’s coming and just, please?” she locked eyes with the other girl. “Kiss me?”</p><p>“Ah, got it,” Jane nodded once, short and sharp, “One totally over you and moving on kiss, coming right up.”</p><p>Before Yaz could ask if she really had categories of kisses, Jane took both of their cups and set them on the table. Turning back to Yaz, she pulled her close, wrapping skinny but surprisingly strong arms around Yaz’s back. Jane was ever so slightly taller than her, and Yaz tilted up a bit, as Jane leaned down. Yaz had never kissed anyone taller than her and the thought floated across her mind that it was an interesting angle.</p><p>That was her last coherent thought for several moments.</p><p>When Jane pulled back, Yaz was grateful that the blonde looked as undone as she felt, hazel eyes with pupils blown staring at her from a distance only far enough away to permit them both to breathe.</p><p>“Wow,” Yaz uttered inanely, hating herself for it the next second.</p><p>“Wow,” Jane echoed, which helped defeat the embarrassment. “Guess that showed Izzy, right?” she smiled uncertainly, eyes losing their shine.</p><p>Yaz didn’t have to think twice about the right response to that one. “Izzy who?” She gave in and kissed the tip of that adorably tempting nose.</p><p>Jane broke into a wide grin, nose scrunching, as she dived back in for what promised to be a just as memorable second kiss.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Alarm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: It’s 3am, in the dead of winter, some motherfucker pulled/set off the fire alarm, and I am being very vocal about how I’m gonna make that fucker pay.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>“I’m going to kill her.” Jane heard the growl behind her and ducked, looking for a place to hide.</p><p>“Kill who?” a deeper voice asked, stifling a yawn in the middle.</p><p>“You know exactly who,” the first voice rose. “Who else would manage to get us all chucked out in the cold at three in the morning? In December!” The woman enunciated the second sentence as though it were enough proof in itself. Jane spotted a convenient lamp post and attempted to hide behind it.</p><p>“Could have been someone making popcorn,” the second, male voice answered. “What?” he responded to some non-verbal reaction that Jane couldn’t see as she closed her eyes in an attempt to become one with the post. What sorts of thoughts would a lamp post have if it could have thoughts? Probably thoughts about electrical currents? She could do that, fascinating thing electricity, Tesla didn’t get nearly enough credit for that amazing discovery. “All I’m saying,” the man’s voice drowned out her current (Ha! That was a good one, she should save it for her physics listserv) train of thought. “All I’m saying is you can’t assume it was her. Could have been popcorn, or hey, that gal in the basement with that really creepy smile is the one who blew up the post box. You know, the one who’s always in purple.”</p><p>“Do you fancy her?” was the next surprising question, and almost made Jane open her eyes.</p><p>“No, I don’t think it’d be real safe to fancy the future serial killer in the basement, Yaz,” the man said dryly. “I don’t want to end up on a witness stand or as a missing person.”</p><p>“Good luck avoiding that living in this nut house,” The woman – Yaz, the other person had called her – scoffed. “But I didn’t mean Missy, Ryan, and you know it. I meant the reason we’re all out here getting frostbite, the blonde up on the top floor. Never heard you defend any of these other loons.”</p><p>“She’s nice,” that warmed Jane’s heart, although now she was concerned that she couldn’t place the voice. Yaz had called him Ryan. Ryan, Ryan, who was Ryan? Not the pencil thin bloke with the sticky up hair and silly pinstripes on the third floor, surely.</p><p>“She is,” Ryan protested something that Jane had utterly missed. “We got to talking doing laundry the other day. Knows a lot about machinery, that one. Right helpful with a few questions I’ve been trying to work out for my NVQ.”</p><p>“Oh well, if she can talk about machines,” Yaz dismissed. Still, she sounded less angry and more tired. Jane’s heart gave a pang. She hadn’t meant to wake the whole building, really. Yaz probably should be angry with her, keeping her up from sleep.</p><p>“Wait, is that,” Yaz’s voice cut off abruptly, and Jane wondered if the firemen were already done clearing the building. That was a lot faster than usual. Was it safe to take a peek, yet?</p><p>“What did you do?” Suddenly Yaz’s voice was a lot louder and a lot closer. Well, the one probably had to do with the other, Jane reasoned. “Well?” Louder, closer, and impatient, she amended.</p><p>Tentatively, she cracked one eye open. Yep, definitely closer. Right in front of her in fact. And, talking to her?</p><p>“Hi,” she said, opening her other eye and trying out nonchalantly leaning against the lamp post. She could pull this off, she was cool.</p><p>“’Hi?’” Yaz didn’t seem impressed. Perfectly good introductory word, ‘hi.’ Lots of tradition behind it. What was so wrong with hi? “That’s all you have to say? What did you do to set off the alarm? Maybe if you let the firemen know we could all get back inside before we get hypothermia.”</p><p>“Not likely to do that,” Jane objected, mouth moving before her brain caught up. “Everyone’s pretty well bundled up and moving around, and the firemen should have the building cleared before anyone could even get past the mild symptoms. Maybe if someone had been drinking, but doesn’t seem like anyone’s inebriated. Or really old, that’d make it likelier, too. Er,” she stopped talking, noting that these facts didn’t seem to have made Yaz look any less angry. “Should be fine?” Maybe the simplified version would work better.</p><p>Yaz closed her eyes. Or maybe not. “What,” she said slowly, opening her eyes again to glare into Jane’s, “did you do?”</p><p>“Oh, that, right,” Jane fidgeted with the zipper on her coat. This was going to go down poorly, she could just tell. Not even her fault, really. “Tried to get to the roof.” Smile, that would make things better. Can’t be mad at someone who’s smiling. “Sorry.” Maybe a shrug? An apologetic sort of shrug and a smile. An apologetic smile.</p><p>“The roof. You mean the door to the roof clearly labeled ‘Emergency Exit Only. Opening this door will sound an alarm.’ That roof?” She wasn’t yelling, that was a good sign, right?</p><p>“That’s the one,” Jane agreed. “Turns out they actually meant it. Thought it was just, y’know, a scare tactic. Guess not. Who locks up the roof? Brilliant things, roofs. Could have a garden up there or catch a nice breeze,” she huffed and looked down at her shoes. There was a hole in the toe of this pair and she wiggled her foot until she could see one of the bright yellow stars that were on her socks through it. She knew that look on Yaz’s face, the yelling was definitely going to start soon. “Could watch the stars,” she muttered, even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good.</p><p>“We’re all out here because you couldn’t just catch a breeze by opening up your windows?” Yep, that was getting louder. “It’s December, who even wants a breeze?”</p><p>“You can’t see the stars from the windows, Yaz,” Jane tried to point it out calmly, but she was pretty sure that had been loud, too. “Look, see,” she reached out and grabbed Yaz, tugging her away from the street lights and the clumps of people starting to stare at them. Yaz refused to move for a moment, but finally stomped after her with an aggravated growl.</p><p>Jane led them around the side of the building, where the wall and the overgrown trees shielded most of the light, but a little further past the brush was a nice opening where they could still see the sky.</p><p>“I was trying to get up there a little early, so we should be just in time,” she explained to Yaz, pacing around the small clearing trying to find a good view of the right section of the sky. More than luckily, it happened to be plainly visible from just about the center. Bouncing slightly up and down in excitement, she looked over to check Yaz’s reaction.</p><p>“What are you doing over there?” she called, realizing that Yaz had yet to leave the tree line. “You’ll miss it!” Her arms were making summoning motions and she wondered how long they’d been doing that, forcing them to fall back to her sides. Either her words or her arms had convinced Yaz, though, who reluctantly crossed the clearing to stand next to her.</p><p>“See?” Jane pointed upwards, checking back and forth between the sky and Yaz’s face. This was sure to impress her, right? Totally make up for the whole fire alarm thing.</p><p>“What am I looking for?” To her credit, Yaz didn’t sound exasperated, just confused. Almost had the proper scientific spirit, Jane decided, then scooched over to try and follow where Yaz was looking.</p><p>“Oh no, not there. Turn that way. No, back a bit to the right. Here, just,” Jane gave in and grasped Yaz by the shoulders steering her to the best spot and turning her back and forth slightly until she was at the proper angle. The woman startled under her touch at first, but gamely let Jane move her like a puppet after a beat. So much more efficient. “Okay, now,” Jane stepped up behind Yaz, and sighted over her shoulder, moving her own arm to line up with the right sector. “Just watch this spot here.” She should probably leave her arm there, Jane decided. People got distracted so easily from science and she didn’t want Yaz to miss this. It had nothing to do with the fact that Yaz was warm as toast, unlike Jane, who probably should have picked warmer layers. Warmer layers didn’t have stars all over them, though, and it was important to be thematically consistent, she reassured herself. Yaz smelled nice, too. Why are you thinking about how she smells, she asked herself, making sure that it was quiet and internal for once. That’s got nothing to do with meteors at all.</p><p>Before her self could make a big deal out of it, Yaz gasped. Jane jumped and refocused on the sky in time to see a meteor tail flame out of sight.</p><p>“It’s the Gemenids,” she explained into Yaz’s ear, lowering her arm. Yaz shivered and Jane frowned. The woman had bundled up so well, she shouldn’t be cold. Briskly, Jane rubbed her hands up and down the arms of Yaz’s coat. Couldn’t have her getting cold and giving up so soon, she thought virtuously, and continued her explanation. “Actually comes every year at this time. It lasts a couple nights, but this one is always the best. D’you know it’s one of the few meteor showers that isn’t caused by a comet? Scientists think it’s actually an asteroid that causes it. There’s only one other meteor shower not caused by comets and that’s the Quadrantids. That one’s over quicker though, and fainter, harder to see. This is the best one, I think, and it’s been getting brighter, too, every year.” Another streak of yellow fell across the sky.</p><p>“It’s amazing,” Yaz whispered.</p><p>“Yeah, it really is,” Jane agreed watching the tail fade from view. She whispered , too. It was nice. Made it seem like it was just the two of them at the edge of the world. “When I was little I was so disappointed when I found out magic wasn’t real, but it is real. We just call it science, and it happens all around us, all the time, if we just pay attention.”</p><p>Four meteors blazed at once and they both fell silent. Jane, for once, didn’t even find it difficult to just exist in the moment, in this quiet. The fire arching over their heads so far away they would never be able to touch it if they tried filled every jittering corner of her mind.</p><p>“Thanks.” Jane looked down from the sky to find that Yaz had twisted slightly to face her, arms still caught between her own. Face to face, they suddenly seemed much closer than they had previously. Jane wondered how that was mathematically possible.</p><p>“For setting off the fire alarm?” she whispered back, and then wondered if she maybe shouldn’t have reminded her of that accident.</p><p>“Yeah,” Yaz smiled at her suddenly, dimples appearing like extra, secret smiles. “Though next time, maybe skip that step.”</p><p>“Next time,” Jane echoed, lost in that deepening smile, grin spreading over her own face, as time and space continued their dance, blazing and passing overhead.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Time to change the point of view up a little, right? I decided to attempt some ridiculousness from The Doctor's side.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Dare</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: I swear I’m wearing this Batman costume because of a dare</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>Jane started to slouch lower in the chair, then shot upright again when cold plastic on the back of her thighs reminded her why slouching was a bad idea. Nervously, she tugged the bottom of her outfit lower. Couldn’t even really call it a dress, she scowled down at the material in question. More like a shirt with pretensions.</p><p>The stockings that Amy had thrown at her head to go with it didn’t make matters any better. She wasn’t certain how more cloth combined to make her seem less clothed, but they were certainly managing it in defiance of all logic.</p><p>Sighing, she leaned forward, only to be stopped with a sharp jerk. Muttering, she reached back to free the short cape that had gotten caught – <em>yet again</em> – on the studs in the back of the chair. This was not at all how she had planned this day to go.</p><p>Yesterday, when Jane got conned into this dare by Amy, her plot had been to just stay home the entire day. She should have known the ginger would see straight through that clever plan. Instead, Amy had obviously known beforehand that she was running desperately low on shirts. And socks. And trousers. Well, basically, that laundry was a pressing need.</p><p>This morning, straight after she crawled out of bed, before she could even make a cup of tea (the sacrilege), she had walked straight into a trap. Over the back of one kitchen chair was The Outfit. Draped over another, long legs casually crossed on a third, Amy lounged with a smirk and a pointed look. A pointed look poorly hidden behind a beautiful, steaming cup of tea, to add insult to injury.</p><p>Jane had grabbed The Outfit and turned to stomp back out of the kitchen with all the dignity she was capable of while uncaffeinated and in roaring dinosaur slippers (the most brilliant slippers, but hard on the dignity), when Amy added that fateful sentence:</p><p>“Didn’t you say this was your only free day for laundry?”</p><p>So maybe it was less Amy being fiendishly clever and more Jane spilling her plans the previous evening, but clearly there was an element of fiendishness here, because who had taken cruel advantage of knowledge obtained from a kind and generous housemate who had never done any wrong (those incidents with the toaster, or the plant, or the braces, clearly not applicable in this situation) and who was the kind and forbearing soul getting plastic burn on the back of her thighs? Jane rested her case. As judgement, she was never trusting her housemates again. From here on out, her actions would be a mystery, her movements shrouded in secrecy, hints of her life would be as rumors upon the wind. She would need to get a really cool hat. Maybe a fedora?</p><p>A sniff pulled her out of her thoughts, and Jane sat up so straight that she could almost hear her bones creaking, pulling the bottom of the ‘dress’ down as far as it would go, as an older man, a guy in his twenties, and a woman who sniffed again and said ‘really’ passed in front of her seat. Desperately, she fixed her eyes on the swish of her first load of clothes in the washer and prayed for Einstein to be wrong just this once about relativity.</p><p>It was surprisingly meditative, watching the swirl of suds and occasional glimpses of cloth spin around. After a few minutes, she made a game out of trying to identify her clothing through the tiny window. That looked like a bit of her favorite blue trousers, this was definitely the shirt she’d found at the Oxfam with constellations all over it that actually <em>glowed in the dark</em>, and that brightly colored scrap was probably her favorite jumper with the rainbow that wrapped all the way around. Or it could be the rainbow tee that Rory had got her for Christmas. Maybe the tie-dyed button up? Wait, had she put her scarf in the laundry? How many pieces of rainbow clothing did she have?</p><p>Jane leisurely moved past contemplating her sartorial choices, and into figuring out how to rearrange her clothes so that she could fit all of them into the wardrobe. This was logical, she reasoned, as it would leave the dresser free for more essential items like the extra, clearly unnecessary gears leftover from when she put the toaster back together and her custard cream stash. She was contemplating either abandoning hanging things on the rod altogether with just stacks piled from the floor of the wardrobe to the ceiling versus whether she really needed more than three outfits, when she realized that someone was trying to get her attention. Nervously, Jane checked her legs to make sure that everything was as covered as it could be, before she looked up to catch the other person mid-sentence.</p><p>“Sorry, don’t mean to bother you, I was just wondering…”</p><p>“It was a dare,” Jane blurted out, unable to keep silent when faced with a dead gorgeous woman, who had hair in two of the cutest buns she had ever seen in her entire life, standing in front of Jane as though they belonged on the same planet. “A really stupid dare, but I swear it wasn’t my idea. And it’s not my outfit,” she hastened to clarify. “It’s Amy’s. Amy and her evil, evil ways.”</p><p>“Um,” the woman seemed taken aback at the outpour of words. “Well, that makes sense. I hadn’t really thought about, well, I guess I just assumed it was definitely laundry day in your house.” To Jane’s amazement, the vision in front of her gave a little grin. Oh no, her mind whimpered. Are those honest to goodness dimples? What do we do with <em>actual</em> <em>dimples</em>? Wait, quick, the dimples are disappearing, say something, anything.</p><p>“No, well, yes, it was, which is the only reason I’m out in public. Amy knew,” her tongue raced on, bypassing her brain which was attempting a dimple-induced forced reboot, “she knew that today was laundry day, it was all part of her fiendish plan. Never, ever go drinking with someone evil,” she advised the woman, pleased to note that she was still smiling. “It makes it easier for them to put their plots in order.”</p><p>“I’ll try and remember that,” she laughed, skin crinkling at the corners of her eyes. Jane thought they were the most adorable creases. She probably shouldn’t say that out loud, her latent and very well hidden streak of social acceptability punted to her brain, people found that sort of thing weird. “I had actually just meant to ask you if this was your last load to claim the washer after you, but now I want to hear the rest of this story.”</p><p>“Really? I mean, I have a second load. I’m sorry. I could tell you about my evil housemates, though. While we wait. I’m good with storytelling, nothing like stories, what makes the world go round, really. I’m Jane,” she finished, congratulating herself on tacking on at least a bit of normalcy to the end there. Come on, brain, get it together.</p><p>“Yaz,” the woman replied. Brilliant name, Yaz. Jane liked it already. “And that sounds like a great plan. Plus, now you can help me keep an eye out for a washer. That lady over there,” Yaz motioned with her chin towards the one who had sniffed at Jane earlier, “always tries to steal the next one, even if it isn’t her turn.”</p><p>“The nerve,” Jane managed through numb lips. She was in a plot with Yaz. Jane and Yaz, co-conspirators. Wait, maybe that should be Yaz and Jane? It was Yaz’s plot, after all, that was only fair. Yaz and Jane, co-conspirators. This was the best morning ever.</p><p>“Wait, hang on,” Yaz said and reached around behind Jane. As she tugged on the cape, Jane gave up on the blue screen currently overwriting her ability to think. Higher thought processes were probably overrated anyway. “There,” Yaz said, straightening the cape to lie over the back of the chair, rather than pinned behind Jane, “now you won’t strangle to death before telling me about your battle against evil, Batman.”</p><p>“That’s low, Yaz,” she managed, wrinkling her nose, which only seemed to prompt further laughter. “Fine, fine, be in league with the evil,” she gave in and laughed, too. “So,” she started, when they both calmed down. Yaz pulled one knee up to turn and face Jane. “So,” she repeated, trying not to wheeze as Yaz leaned closer, propping her head up with one hand, arm resting on the back of her chair. “The first thing you should know is that Amy moonlights as a Kiss-o-gram, and Kiss-o-grams dress up as all sorts of ridiculous things.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Machine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Accidentally knocked on the wrong dorm room</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>This was, admittedly, a bit of a setback. Jane wasn’t too proud to admit it. However, what were setbacks to a scientist? Opportunities for innovation, creativity, and discovery, that’s what. Only a… a <em>non-scientist</em> would allow a little thing like this to create a stumbling block or a failure. An experiment was only a failure when you quit, she thought virtuously, or when you stopped writing things down. Or at least learning something, she amended again, considering The Microwave Experiments. Really, it was very hard for an experiment to be a failure if you approached it in the correct frame of mind.</p><p>Still, this little, tiny bit of a setback was going to require some thinking. It’d be easier to think, Jane pondered if she could sit down. Actually, movement at all would be a blessing, her calves were beginning to suggest to her – in the most polite of manners – that they would really like to stop doing this now, if it was all the same to her.</p><p>It was not all the same to her, so they were just going to have to summon up their tiny, inner, muscle-scientists and bear with it. Jane was sure they had them, they were her muscles after all, and she refused to believe that any part of her body would house a non-scientific muscle, bone, or organ. Maybe some of the ligaments. Ligaments were tricky things.</p><p>If only anyone would answer her mass group text, then she wouldn’t be in this tiny pickle anymore. Really, what was the point of everyone being on a group text if no one bothered to come to her aid? Might as well have shouted out the window. Distracted, she wondered if that would generate a better effect. No, she was too far from the window now. Pity. She’d put that on the checklist for next time. Checklists were very scientific.</p><p>This wasn’t helping to solve her immediate problem, but it was hard to focus on sciency thinking when her nose itched. Noses were distinctly non-scientist she decided. What were noses made of again? Cartilage? That sounded right. Downright non-scientific was cartilage, and probably in league with the rogue ligament elements. Twisting her head to the side, accompanied by a series of pops from her neck that were on the edge between relief and pain, she scrubbed her nose against her shoulder.</p><p>Okay, calves given a talking-to and nose taken care of, it was science time.</p><p>A loud series of three knocks at the door interrupted Jane’s latest attempt to corral her thoughts. This time would surely have worked, she told her brain, but we should really find out who that is at the door. Must be someone from the group text, finally come to her aid.</p><p>“Come in,” she yelled over her shoulder. “Quick!”</p><p>The door creaked open and she heard two fast steps and then one slow one before the person halted behind her.</p><p>“Well, don’t just stand there,” she grumbled. “Took you ages to get here, anyway. Grab that section there, with the sticky out bit – spectrometer bit really – and hold it up out of the way.”</p><p>“Um, I’m not sure,” the person started, unmoving.</p><p>“Come on, come on, my calves are killing me,” Jane cut in, impatient. “I’m sure you won’t break it.”</p><p>“I… fine,” slowly footsteps wound their way to her right. After a moment, the weight started to lift and Jane sighed in relief.</p><p>“Molto bene,” she tried out, then wrinkled her nose. “Ick. No. Won’t be saying that again. Sounds all wrong. But, thanks! Now, keep a good grip on that, while I duck under this spirally detectory thing here,” she suited action to word, crouching and sliding under the machine, to a bitten off protest behind her.</p><p>“Don’t worry, don’t worry, perfectly safe. Just couldn’t set that bit down until I got this bit in. Erm, you’ve got a good grip on that bit, right?” she steamrolled past the answer. “It’ll be fine. Just need to add this,” she pulled a convoluted mass of wire hanger from her back pocket, “right under here. Took me ages to get this in the right shape,” she chattered. “Wouldn’t believe how unhelpful diagrams can be when you’re working on a reduced scale. Not that I don’t want to build the full size – no offense, darling,” she carefully patted the machine. “You’re lovely stem to stern, really you are, and I’m sure you’re going to work like a champ. To go full size, though, I’m going to need a bigger space. And Martha’s the only one with a house instead of a room, and she won’t let me give it a go over there. Rude. All that extra space, what’s she going to do with it, anyway? Tables and rugs and, I don’t know what, those weird little cabinets full of things that you’re not supposed to touch. What’s the point of having things you can’t touch?” Jane asked, concentration mostly on delicately touching the ends of the wire in place and winding them securely.</p><p>“Well,” the voice above her paused, as though making sure Jane had finished her thought. That was nice, Jane thought absently. Most of her friends had figured out they just had to hop in when the opportunity presented itself. It worked well much of the time, but sometimes it meant she had to try a couple times to get to the conclusion of her thought. Especially when the conclusion of her thought changed halfway through her thought and she had to recalibrate. “My Nani has a few things like that, mostly from when she had to leave Pakistan. When we were little we couldn’t touch them because they were fragile. She’d tell us about them, though, and said they were precious, not because of what they were, but because they helped her to remember the places and people that she wouldn’t ever see again.”</p><p>Jane pondered this for a moment. “Don’t think I have anything like that,” she decided. “Mostly I just carry my memories inside me, so they can never be gone from me. Might be nice though,” she trailed off, clamping the last bit of wire down. “Hah, result! But wait,” she started to crawl back out from under the machine, “my second granny used to have a wall of plates that no one could eat off of and she never said anything about memories. Just that they’d be worth something one day. She wasn’t any good at stories, though,” Jane mused, scooting under a low-lying pipe. “That was Granny Five all the way. Best stories ever.”</p><p>“Five?” The voice questioned, and Jane should really be able to tell which friend it was without seeing them, shouldn’t she? Was that a sign of a bad friend, that she couldn’t recognize the girl without seeing her? She should probably look it up. Bless Google. She no longer had to solely rely on Donna, who was just as accurate, but prefaced every answer with ‘oh my god, you absolute weirdo’ especially when Jane called her up late on Friday nights. Google had yet to call her a nimrod. “How many grannies do you have?”</p><p>“Seven,” Jane answered absently, navigating her way under the last barrier, the pipe her unidentified friend was holding up. “Granny Five was the best one, though. Right,” she popped up, giving an extra little hop at being free from holding onto any machine part for the first time in… awhile. Certainly hours. Definitely not days. She was pretty sure. “Thanks ever so much,” she trailed off. Not recognizing your friends on sight was probably definitely a sign that she was a Very Bad Friend, but Jane couldn’t place the girl in front of her at all. “Um, friend,” she ended weakly. “We are, right?” That was something people could casually check, wasn’t it? “Friends, that is? I mean you just helped me with this beauty,” she gave the machine a light pat, “so we’re absolutely tiptop friends, you’re aces. Just, y’know, about how long would you say that we’ve been friends for?”</p><p>The girl looked surprised for a moment, then snorted and broke into a grin. “Well, if we’re taking holding this thing up as a token of friendship, then about thirty minutes, I’d say. I’m guessing this isn’t Izzy Flint’s room? She agreed to work on our physics project, but given the run around I’ve just had trying to find the room she said to meet at, I’m guessing she wasn’t that sincere. Shouldn’t be surprised, Saturday night and all, but she hasn’t wanted to do any of it and it’s due on Monday!” The girl’s voice had grown steadily louder and aggrieved as she ranted. “I’ve done most of it, but she’s going to do something for it if I have to trek across the whole town to find her,” her voice lowered to a growl as her eyes narrowed, glowering at the machine. Jane wouldn’t want to be this Izzy Flint when this girl got hold of her, that was for sure.</p><p>“Wait, is it Saturday?” her mouth poured out the least relevant question as she stared at the seething figure before her. Quickly, she clapped her hands over her face, but it was too late. “Hang on, I don’t know you?” she mumbled behind them, which was at least slightly more relevant.</p><p>The girl blinked back up at her, then smiled. “Yes, it’s Saturday. I, hang on, can I set this down now?”</p><p>“Oh,” Jane jumped in place. “Yes, sorry, absolutely. Here, let me shift this bit and help you over this way. A smidge over. Yup, just there. Perfect! Brilliant work, um,” she stalled again, realizing that she didn’t know this stranger’s name. No wait, they’d decided they were friends now, because working on a machine meant you were friends. So, she didn’t know her new friend’s name. “I’m Jane Smith,” she introduced herself, belatedly. Donna had been very definite that this was how to begin conversations.</p><p>“Yasmin Khan,” the girl smiled, shaking out her arms. “Yaz to my friends. What is this, anyway?”</p><p>“Yaz, then, cause we’re friends now,” Jane nodded her head sharply. She had this conversation thing down pat, take that, Donna. “It’s a particle accelerator,” she continued brightly, concerned as Yaz jumped back from it several paces. “Just a small one, reduced size, did I tell you Martha Jones wouldn’t let me use her house for a bigger one?” she added indignantly. “All that accelerator space just going to waste. Still, think I can give her a try now, just had that last fiddly bit to put in and tighten this pipe down,” she lovingly stroked the section Yaz had been holding up.</p><p>“Wait, hang on,” Jane bounced in place slightly as she looked over where Yaz stood, gazing wide-eyed at her lovely machine, “did you say you were doing a physics project?” Yaz transferred her wide eyes to Jane. “Love physics, me,” she tried to fill in the silence. Maybe Yaz wasn’t great at conversation. That was fine, Jane could handle it for both of them, now that she’d got the hang of it. “Izzy Flint doesn’t know what she’d missing. What are ya working on?”</p><p>“Um,” Yaz looked between her and the machine. “It’s not a <em>particle accelerator</em>.”</p><p>“That’s a relief,” Jane conceded. “Just did one of those, need a bit of variety. C’mon, don’t be selfish, love a talk with a fellow scientist. Think I’ve got some tea bags around here somewhere,” she turned to consider her cupboard, “and I got the kettle put back together so we should be able to have a nice, proper chat. Ooo, and custard creams! Think I hid a box from myself. Just got to remember where,” she turned slowly in place, trying to think back to yesterday. Possibly yesterday. Maybe Wednesday, as Yaz had said it was Saturday now.</p><p>“A particle accelerator,” Yaz repeated, seemingly stuck on the phrase. “In your room. Is that - legal? We aren’t even allowed hot plates in ours. I,” Yaz stopped and laughed. Jane looked up to find her at the cupboard. “I think the custard creams are right here.” She turned, holding up the pack.</p><p>“Oh, clever me. Last place I’d look, in the cupboard. I was going to start with the Microwave Graveyard,” now that Yaz had the biscuits covered, Jane moved to the desk to flip of the kettle. “There, that’ll be going soon. Souped it up a bit. Can’t be waiting forever for tea, now can you?”</p><p>Yaz looked over at her uncertainly. Jane tried to review the last few things she’d said. Nothing startling there, was there? “Is your project secret?” Some scientists didn’t want to put their thoughts out until they’d had some results, she should have considered that, but Yaz would understand her enthusiasm, surely.</p><p>“No, except maybe to Izzy. It’s just, I’m in Physics for Non-Majors,” Yaz shrugged. “I don’t think it’s going to be a very exciting topic for someone who just built a particle accelerator. In their room. Was it just - did no one notice? Wait no, never mind that bit. Sorry. Anyway, I don’t want to waste your time.”</p><p>“Yasmin Khan,” Jane set the box of tea bags down in shock. “Time spent with science is never wasted. And I’ve never taken Physics for Non-Majors. Maybe I missed something, and if you hadn’t come along, I’d never know. So,” she whirled around, ready to put that topic behind her and also unsure if she could handle the slowly growing sunrise of a smile across Yaz’s face. Did something weird to her insides, that. “Harsh truth time,” she slowly raised the box in each hand. “Earl Gray or Assam?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>...and we're back! I had to take off the weekend to work on a project, although sadly not one with a particle accelerator either, and I missed these two disasters :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. The Monster</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prompt: Heard a scream and thought you were getting killed, but it was just a spider.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>#</p><p>Jane was so close to an answer that she could almost taste it. Actually, she wished that she could taste it. Success had to taste better than her mouth after a four day working binge fueled solely by energy drinks, coffee, and custard creams. She’d run out of custard creams yesterday. Jane gave herself a moment of silence in remembrance of that horrible moment, and then blindly reached to her right for another handful of coffee.</p><p>Sometime around the beginning of Day Three she’d worked out that brewing the coffee was actually just diluting the caffeine content and had switched to eating the grounds by the handful instead. It had been better when she could wash it down with a custard cream, but she made do with a swig of energy drink instead. If Marie Curie could power through radiation poisoning, she could manage a little grittiness and a somewhat unpleasant burn in her stomach.</p><p>Jane raised the can to her lips and attempted to take a swig, only to find that it was empty. Sighing, she added it to the pile and groped for a fresh one from the stack. Her stockpile of energy drinks was holding out much longer than the custard cream stash, luckily. Her hand grasped only air and she reluctantly turned from her screen to track down the sweet nectar of wakefulness.</p><p>That’s when she saw it.</p><p>There was… <em>something</em> moving in the corner.</p><p><em>Something</em> that made strange skittering shadows against the wall.</p><p><em>Something </em>that moved, but made no noise<em>.</em></p><p><em>Something</em> that was moving closer and closer to her.</p><p>Jane screamed and scrambled to stand on top of the bed, grabbing the nearest object to hand on her way.</p><p>She screamed again when the door flew open and a complete stranger ran into the room. The stranger was carrying a cricket bat, which she held in front of her menacingly as she braced herself near the door. When her eyes landed on Jane, she relaxed, letting the cricket bat drop, and a look of confusion passed over her face.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” The stranger frowned. “I heard screaming. Are you okay? I thought someone was being attacked.”</p><p>Jane wasn’t sure if the heart palpitations were from the caffeine or lingering terror, but she tried to ask her most pressing question through some deep breaths. “Who are you?”</p><p>“What?” The stranger blinked, before she smiled. “Oh right, I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Yasmin Khan. Yaz. I’m your new housemate. Got the room down the hall, next to the window.” Yaz frowned, “I saw you in some of the pictures downstairs, but I thought you were on a trip or something. I moved in about a week ago.”</p><p>“I had to,” Jane lost her words briefly and gestured towards her computer. “Missy said that I couldn’t solve it, but I can! I have! Well, I almost have. I’m so close.” She brought her fists to her face and stared at the computer screen though them. This close, this is how close she was, she knew it. Why was she holding a bag of coffee grounds?</p><p>“Who’s Missy?” Yaz started, shook her head, and interrupted herself. “Wait, you’ve been in here all week, working? You never left? Is that why you screamed?”</p><p>“Screamed?” Jane echoed, confused. She’d lost track of what Yaz was talking about, that probably meant it was time for more coffee. Looking over to her stash, she saw the pyramid of empty cans and remembered the monster. “There’s something in here,” she yelled, then lowered her voice when Yaz jumped back and raised the bat again. “There’s something in here. I saw it moving in the corner. It’s come for my secrets,” she gasped. “It’s probably in league with Missy.” She reflected a moment, “Or it wants to kill me. Although that still doesn’t rule out Missy.”</p><p>“Are you sure it wasn’t a mouse?” Jane looked over at Yaz, shocked at this callous dismissal of a threat against her work. Or possibly her life. Yaz looked over, nose wrinkled. “I’m just saying, this is quite a mess, it’s like mouse heaven. What is all this?”</p><p>Jane looked at Energy Drink Mountain with a critical gaze. She supposed it was possible that this method of can disposal was not ideal, but it had been very efficient. “I think I need to buy a bigger bin,” she admitted out loud. “It lost integrity on Day Two.”</p><p>“And you didn’t empty it in the kitchen, because?” Yaz trailed off, expectantly.</p><p>“The problem, Yaz,” Jane gestured with the bag of coffee grounds. “I couldn’t just leave it, I’d lose the zone. Vital to solving the problems of the world, the zone.”</p><p>Yaz did not look as though this explanation was satisfactory in the least, but she just sighed, propped the bat by the door, and approached the corner. Standing so that her toes remained outside the debris, she peered into the depths.</p><p>“Careful, Yaz,” Jane wondered what she should do if something exploded out of the Mountain. She’d seen a movie where that happened once. One frame, normal, next frame – boom! monster. She’d jumped over into Donna’s lap at that. Donna had shoved her onto the floor, which was just rude. Maybe she could chuck her coffee grounds at it. She readied the bag in a throwing position.</p><p>“Think I’ve found your guest,” Yaz sounded amused.</p><p>“I didn’t invite a monster into my room, Yaz,” Jane defended herself. “You’ve got to invite someone before they’re a guest.”</p><p>“Well then,” Yaz carefully bent over and scooped something out of the cans. “I’ll just take your not-guest somewhere else, then.” She turned and Jane could see a black speck cradled in her cupped hands. “Think you scared him with all your screaming.”</p><p>“I was being attacked,” Jane tried weakly, climbing off of the bed. “What is it?”</p><p>“One friendly neighborhood house spider,” Yaz told her, tilting her hands so that Jane could see the small figure clambering over the ridges of her palm. “I’ll go find him a spot where he can capture flies and not workaholics.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Jane mumbled. “I’m sorry about the screaming.”</p><p>“Great,” Yaz answered. Jane blinked. Was it the caffeine wearing off or did that not make sense? “Then you won’t mind making it up by clearing this tip out. Please, before you get something worse than a spider. I wasn’t kidding about mice.”</p><p>“But my work,” she wilted under Yaz’s stare. “Yeah, guess that would be bad.” Trying to rub her hand across her eyes, she instead socked herself in the face with the bag of coffee. She should probably put that down soon. Now. Carefully, she perched it on the corner of the desk.</p><p>“I’ll be back up in a minute to help,” Yaz said, heading for the door.</p><p>“You will?” Jane reached more quickly for a bag to start collecting cans. Yaz was going to help clean up her mess? That wasn’t usual.</p><p>“Yep, just in case this Missy is crouching behind the pile to get you.” Was Yaz laughing at her? “Don’t want one of my housemates to go missing first week I’m here, that just looks bad.” Yaz was definitely laughing at her. “Plus then I can make you do dinner and a movie with me. Everyone else is out and I hate to just cook for myself.” Yaz was laughing at her and going to cook for her? Jane felt like her brain had been replaced by a cursor, flashing.</p><p>“Really?” Jane swallowed around a lump in her throat. Probably coffee grounds.</p><p>“Yeah,” Yaz was half out of the doorway, but had turned back towards the room. Jane looked over her shoulder to catch the small smile on her face. “Seems like a pretty good night in to me, yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jane whispered in agreement.</p><p>“Even if you do wind up falling asleep head first into your plate,” Yaz laughed at what Jane was certain was a completely insulted expression on her face and headed down the hall.</p><p>She should probably have another handful of coffee just so she didn’t prove Yaz right.</p>
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